At this point, Pink Floyd was essentially David Gilmour plus backing musicians. The band's former leader Roger Waters left the band in 1983. But I think it says quite a lot that the Gilmour-led version of Pink Floyd was still so popular in 1990 that it was the closing act of this festival, over such big names as Phil Collins and Paul McCartney, and even the trio of Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, and Elton John playing together.
As I mentioned back in my write-up for Part 1 of this festival, most all of the music from this festival remains officially unreleased, aside from a highlights album and video. But the exception to this is this Pink Floyd set. It was first released in full as part of "The Later Years" box set. Then it later got a stand alone release. Even so, I'm including it here so the entire festival can appear in one place.
Pink Floyd toured all over the world from 1987 to 1989, in the wake of their "Momentary Lapse of Reason" album. However, they wouldn't do another big tour until 1994, after the release of their "Division Bell" album that year. In between, the only full concert they played was this one.
On the band's classic 1973 album "Dark Side of the Moon," the wordless vocals for the song "The Great Gig in the Sky" were sung by Clare Torry. So it was a special treat when she assisted the band by singing that part in this concert. Beautiful and talented Candy Dulfer also played saxophone.
This album is an hour and one minute long.
01 talk by Tommy Vance (Pink Floyd)
02 Shine On You Crazy Diamond [Parts 1-5] (Pink Floyd)
03 The Great Gig in the Sky (Pink Floyd with Clare Torry)
04 talk (Pink Floyd)
05 Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
06 Sorrow (Pink Floyd)
07 Money (Pink Floyd)
08 Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)
09 talk (Pink Floyd)
10 Run like Hell (Pink Floyd)
11 talk (Pink Floyd)
The cover photo of lead singer David Gilmour is from this exact concert.
"At this point, Pink Floyd was essentially David Gilmour plus backing musicians"? You do realise that Nick Mason and Rick Wright perform on this? "Backing Musicians"? It was Pink Floyd minus only Roger Waters.
ReplyDeleteYes, they were there, and that's nice, but not really creatively involved, not like how it was in Pink Floyd in the 1960s and 70s. So in my opinion they were basically like backing musicians. Here's some stuff from the Wikipedia page on the Momentary Lapse of Reason that illustrates what I mean:
DeleteAfter agreeing to rework the material that Ralbovsky had found objectionable, Gilmour employed session musicians such as Carmine Appice and Jim Keltner. Both drummers replaced Mason on several songs; Mason was concerned that he was too out of practice to perform on the album, and instead busied himself with its sound effects.[24][33] Some drum parts were also performed by drum machines.[34] In his memoir, Mason wrote: "In hindsight, I really should have had the self-belief to play all the drum parts. And in the early days of life after Roger, I think David and I felt that we had to get it right, or we would be slaughtered."[35]
During the sessions, Gilmour was asked by the wife of Pink Floyd's former keyboardist, Richard Wright, if he could contribute. A founding member of the band, Wright had left in 1981, and there were legal obstacles to his return; after a meeting in Hampstead he was recruited as a paid musician on a weekly wage of $11,000.[36][37] Gilmour said in an interview that Wright's presence "would make us stronger legally and musically". However, his contributions were minimal; most of the keyboard parts had already been recorded, and so from February 1987 Wright played some background reinforcement on a Hammond organ, and a Rhodes piano, and added vocal harmonies. He also performed a solo in "On the Turning Away", which was discarded, according to Wright, "not because they didn't like it ... they just thought it didn't fit".[25]
Gilmour later said: "Both Nick and Rick were catatonic in terms of their playing ability at the beginning. Neither of them played on this at all really. In my view, they'd been destroyed by Roger." Gilmour's comments angered Mason, who said: "I'd deny that I was catatonic. I'd expect that from the opposition, it's less attractive from one's allies. At some point, he made some sort of apology." Mason conceded that Gilmour was nervous about how the album would be perceived.
I'm not too sure how one single album recorded three years prior to the Knebworth gig has any relevance to your comment. They only played one song ('Sorrow') from A Momentary Lapse Of Reason at Knebworth '90 anyway. The rest of their set was from a legendary back catalogue where nobody in their right mind could ever dismiss or even regard both Nick Mason and Rick Wright as merely 'backing musicians' under any circumstances.
DeleteJust an aside, Knebworth Park is in Hertfordshire, England and not 'Britain' as incorrectly stated ;o)
Thank you so very much for all your hard work putting this together for us!!
ReplyDeleteMay thanks for the Knebworth Festival discs, great listening. Much appreciated
ReplyDeleteThanks for the whole festival!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDelete